Gary Numan: Android in La La Land

It has been well over three decades since Gary Numan’s supernova moment in the pop firmament in the late 1970s, but as this new, and rather fine, documentary profile reveals, the man is still gamely plugging away: putting out records, soaking up acclaim and conducting a pretty good imitation of a normal family life – or as normal as it can be when you have married your number one fan, put in guest appearances with Nine Inch Nails and fail to remember, until after you’ve emigrated there, that guns are legal in the US.

For those who remember Numan as a panstick-caked, near-mute Kraftwerk clone, the new version will be something of a shock. Habitually clad in rock’n’roller’s dark grey T-shirt and jeans, Numan practically runs at the mouth, detailing his psychological and emotional difficulties, his creative inspirations, his relationship with his parents, and his unswerving devotion to his wife Gemma.


In fact, the last of these is probably the most attractive aspect of the film and the story is told at some length. A devoted camp follower in Numan’s pop-star period, Gemma found herself being asked out on a date by her idol as the musician tried to cheer her up after her mother died. A fairly heartbreaking summary of miscarriages and fertility issues followed, but to both their surprise they’ve ended up with three small daughters. With suitably rocker-kid names – Raven, Persia and Echo – they are still young enough to be both baffled by exactly what it is their dad does, and unaffectedly pleased at the attention it brings them. And I bet not many music documentaries feature scenes of a pop icon yelling at his children while driving them across America in a giant camper-van.

It turns out that Numan is a natural for this sort of documentary: unafraid to mine his own past or chunter on about his present and future. It also helps that the directors, Rob Alexander and Steve Read, have no agenda other than uncritically recording Numan’s utterances, and throwing in the odd bit of visual flash when the opportunity arises. Ostensibly, they are there to document Numan’s shift to Los Angeles (hence the La La Land of the title), but their actual accomplishment is to conjure up a portrait of an intelligent, idiosyncratic and really rather admirable musical personality.

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